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Blog Archive - April 2016

I had the good fortune to spend a week with Kristin Linklater at KLVC (the new Kristin Linklater Voice Centre) on the main Orkney Island for about 10 days. Kristin has built a beautiful studio with attached kitchen and living room area for residential retreats in the area of Voice & Text. The attached dormitories will be completed by the end of the month. Meanwhile, we lived in modern, comfortable cottages five minutes away.

Releasing your voice is always a worthy pursuit wherever you are and Kristin’s method is known worldwide as “Freeing the Natural Voice” (also the name of her much used book in drama programs around the world). It is inspirational, however, to free one’s voice while looking at the rolling Scottish farmland and the sea just beyond. One beautiful day, we went down to the beach and practiced our Shakespeare text out to the waves!

“No,” I say, without dropping my smile. I’ve had practice with this response. You can tell: for example, I never, ever use the word “dramaturg” in the sentence, however accurately it might describe what I used to do for a living. “I used to be a director, but then I decided to go back to school. I’m a scholar: I study medieval and early modern drama.”

At this point, the faint look of bemusement on my interlocutor begins to fade into boredom and disappointment. “Like Shakespeare,” they say, their voice trailing off. Their response is ironic, because I think Shakespeare is boring and disappointing. “Sort of. Mostly before him, though,” I respond. At this point, my spooked interlocutor usually scuttles off to find the nearest wine (at best) or any other person they can eyeball up and be reasonably certain is sane (at worst). My mother made it slightly...